Yesterday, I was lucky to get .5kbs out of either Telkom or Indosat. Yesterday was a Sunday. Today is the first day back at work for many folk after their holidays back home for Idul Fitri. It's also the first day back at school for many, including Our Kid.

That means that there will be much additional usage of the appalling internet infrastructure here. So if you're reading this, feel lucky.

Blues

1. If you got to read yesterday's Sunday Express, a UK tabloid, you may be interested to know that, much like Jakartass, the paper has standards, standards of 'good' writing that is. A week or so ago, senior editors were so appalled with the many errors of syntax, spelling, vacuity etc. that writers and sub editors, responsible for tidying up the English, received a lengthy memo detailing each mistake.

I've lifted three out of the many.

P2 - We are told 'fewer than one in five voters were happy with Brown's premiership'. That means none. The GCSE's story said 'almost six in 10 pupils'. So is that five or four? Voters and pupils don't come in fractions.

P5 - Someone is described as an 'ex-pat'. At the very least that's amateurish. Look, let's make it really simple; if you don't know what a word means or how it's spelt, don't f***ing use it.

No sh*t, Sherlock. That will be because, like the rest of us, he couldn't tell the sodding future.

2. "A thirtysomething Malaysian bloke who is currently working and living in a megacity called Jakarta. ... and loving every moment of it" has several WTF pictures of how ordinary Jakartans live and work.

And shop.

The style sheet of his blog is blue....................................

Their last album, Patahan, was recorded in concert at Goethe Haus in April 2005, and released by my friend Leonardo who runs MoonJune Records in NY. I interviewed Leonardo for the music section of Culture Shock-Jakarta and he said that "Riza Arshad of simak Dialog is definitely the greatest musician I have discovered in Indonesia and I know the best of him is still to come. He's an amazing pianist with a great touch andan ECM sensibility."

I was given a copy of the group's demo recordings fifteen years ago by one of Riza's students. Both he and she were obviously enamoured with the sound of the Pat Metheny Group, as I was and still am. In fact, we later met at the PMG concert in 1995 in Jakarta.

Riza tells me that seekers of tickets should ring his assistant, Devi, on 0815 881 1760. You'll probably be able to pay for them at the door.